OPA

A special collection of Navajo Indian rugs and blankets will be shown publicly for the first time in the Eastern United States at the Department of Interior Art Gallery, beginning September 22.

Navajo rugs and blankets have been prime collectors' items for more than a century, being first praised for fine quality by the Spanish Conquistadores who ruled the New Mexico and Arizona region in 1706. American interest in Navajo textiles increased sharply in the 1860's as a result of greater contact with the Navajos.

The fabrics to be displayed are part of the Gilbert S. Maxwell collection, permanently housed at the University of New Mexico. Maxwell, long an outstanding collector of Navajo arts and crafts, began assembling the collection in 1927. This is the first time, however, the public has been able to view the historic collection in the East.

Tom Bahti, an anthropologist and collector of Indian art for 16 years, from Tucson, Arizona, who selected the weaving to be displayed, is in Washington to arrange the show's opening.

Slave blankets, rugs named after a yarn: milled in Germantown, Pennsylvania; Indigo and Two Grey Hills designs are among the pieces selected to represent the history of Navajo weaving. The rugs and blankets date from 1850 to a 1961 product called Yei-bei-chai. An authentic Navajo loom will be set up in the gallery to illustrate the complexity of the art.

The public is invited to view without charge the collection from 10:00 a.m. -40:0 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, at the Department of Interior Art Gallery, fifth floor, 18th and C Streets, N.W., Washington, D. C. The show will be open from September 22 through November 5, 1965.

On-the-job training for 480 American Indians is set to begin under contracts recently completed with nine industries, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash announced today. The companies are located in New Mexico, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Montana, and Oklahoma.

Under Bureau agreements negotiated during the current fiscal year, a total of 717 Indian workers will receive on-the-job training--an increase of 10 percent over the total for the entire preceding year. Six contracts in Oklahoma, Minnesota and North Dakota were announced last month.

Funds for training are provided under a special Bureau program of adult vocational education. Training contracts parallel Bureau efforts to stimulate industrial activity in Indian areas.

The new trainees will learn such varied occupations as jewelry assembly and extrusion of plastic pipe.

Companies involved in contracts just completed are:

H. W. Gossard Co., Bristow, Oklahoma - a $7,770 contract for the training of 20 Indians, mainly Creeks, in the manufacture of women's garments.

Ashland Precision Products Corp., Ashland, Wisconsin--a contract for $12,075 to train 16 Indians from the Bad River Reservation.

Guild Arts and Crafts, Inc., Ashland, Montana--a contract for $5,700 to train 25 Northern Cheyennes of the Tongue River Reservation in jewelry making.

Cardinal Plastics, Inc., Gallup, New Mexico--a $6,200 contract for training of nine Navajos in the extrusion of plastic pipe.

Navajo Forest Products Industries, Window Rock, Arizona--renewal of a contract for 18 Navajos to receive training in manufacture of lumber and related products on the Navajo Reservation, at a cost of $18,100.

Kaiser Aluminum &Chemical Sales, Inc., Gallup, New Mexico--12 Navajos to be trained in aluminum culvert fabrication on tribal lands near Gallup. This is a contract renewal, valued at $4,325.

The Vassar Corp., Cherokee, North Carolina--modification of an earlier contract to increase the number of trainees to 267, thereby also increasing the amount of the contract to $160,600. This involves training of Cherokees in manufacture and assembly of modern hair accessories.

Burnell &Co., Inc., Valencia County, New Mexico--a renewal of a $83,375 contract covering training of 102 Laguna Pueblo Indians on the reservation in manufacture of electronic parts.

Saddlecraft, Inc., Cherokee, North Carolina--a $5,215 contract for training of 12 Cherokees in the manufacture of leathercraft items.

OKLAHOMA CHEROKEES PLAN $2 MILLION PROGRAM

The Oklahoma Cherokees have announced plans for a $2 million program of social and economic benefits for tribal members, to be financed from judgment awards by the Indian Claims Commission for Cherokee claims against the United States.

Projects include financing of construction and equipment for industrial enterprises; construction of trade and technical schools at Stilwell and Tahlequah; a loan guarantee program for tribal members; home improvement projects; student loans; research and writing of a history of the Cherokee Nation; establishment of a Cherokee Shrine and a drama production at Tahlequah; and development of a 40-acre commercial site near Tahlequah, to include an arts and crafts center and a Cherokee council house.

SEMINOLES PLAN FOR BIGGER AND MORE BUSINESS

The Seminole Indians on the Dania Reservation in Florida are planning to increase the attractions they offer for tourists. In the planning stage are a motel complex and golf course, to cost an estimated $980,000, near the Seminole office building at Sterling Road and State Route 7 in Dania.

Plans call for a 40-unit motel with a restaurant to seat 250 diners and a Banquet room for an additional 250. Manager's quarters, bar, storage, swimming pool and parking area are also included. The motel complex will be consolidated with a nine-hole lighted golf course and pro shop, to be constructed nearby.

Meanwhile, the Business Council of the Tribe has endorsed a resolution designating 66 acres of tribal land for industrial use. A tribal industrial development corporation, established by the Seminoles under Florida law, is now exploring means of financing site preparation such as roads, water, sewerage, electricity, and gas. The Tribe plans to lease the development areas to businesses engaged in research, warehousing, or light industry, and to construct buildings as required by the tenants.

NEW PLASTICS PLANT FOR MOBRIDGE, SOUTH DAKOTA

Ceremonies on August 26 marked the start of construction of a new $467,000 manufacturing plant for Products Miniatures of South Dakota, Inc. at Mobridge, South Dakota. The company, a manufacturer of plastic toys, novelties and industrial components, has been negotiating with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Standing Rock Tribe, and the local community.

The new plant will employ Indians from the nearby Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Reservations and a contract may be negotiated with BIA to provide on-the-job training for Indian employees. An initial work force of 30 will be hired, with peak employment expected to reach 100 when the plant is fully operating.

The 30,000-square foot building will be partially financed by a $380,900 loan from the Economic Development Agency, formerly the Area Redevelopment Administration.

SEATTLE FIRM TO STUDY ALASKA COOPERATIVE

The firm of Ernst and Ernst, Seattle, Washington, will conduct a year's study of the operation of the Alaska Native Arts and Crafts Cooperative Association, Inc. (ANAC) under a contract recently awarded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The study will examine ANAC merchandising practices with an eye to expanding markets for native arts and crafts products and improving technical services to native craftsmen.

UINTAH AND OURAY GET JUVENILE COURT

A comprehensive juvenile code for the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah was recently enacted by the tribal Business Council of the Ute Indian Tribe. The code provides for a juvenile tribal court with extensive powers, and was developed in consultation with State juvenile court officials.

YAKIMA INDIAN CLAIMS AWARD

The Indian Claims Commission has granted a $49,000 award to the Yakima Tribe. The amount represents additional compensation for 23,000 acres of land in the State of Washington ceded to the United States by the tribe on January 8, 1894.

KENNECOTT COPPER TO SPONSOR MINING TECHNOLOGY COURSE

A one-year training course for mineral industry technicians will be sponsored this fall by Kennecott Copper Company at the University of Alaska. About three fourths of the class of 15 will be Indians or Alaska Natives. The enrollees, all of whom have at least a junior high school education, will receive instruction in subjects such as: claim staking laws; map reading and drafting; mineral and rock identification; prospecting and mining methods; blasting and drilling; basic geography and geology; surveying and mapping; ore dressing techniques; and oral and written communication. The graduates will be offered employment in Kennecott's operation in the Copper River area.

The largest coal supply letter of intent agreement ever negotiated, utilizing Navajo and Hopi Indian coal reserves in Arizona, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall. The coal to be supplied under this agreement will be used in a planned electric generating plant to be built in Clark County, Nevada, by a group of private and public utilities, with Southern California Edison Company as project manager.

Secretary Udall said, "under the agreement, between Edison and the Peabody Coal Company, Navajo and Hopi coal reserves mined in Black Mesa area, Arizona, will be transported by slurry pipeline or rail to the plant site in Nevada.

"A minimum of 117,000,000 tons of coal would be delivered over a period of 35 years to fuel the first two units for this plant on the Colorado River below Davis Dam. In addition, it is foreseeable that more generating plants will be built later in the Nevada-Arizona area, utilizing additional millions of tons of Indian coal, " Udall stated.

The agreement will mean "new jobs, large tax benefits, and tremendous economic advantages not only in royalties and jobs for the two Indian tribes, but also for all of the entire southwest", the Interior Secretary said. It is estimated that royalties to the Indians will amount to more than $30 million over the term of the agreement.

Udall extended a commendation to "all parties involved in this agreement and for taking a giant step forward in development of a formula for joint public and private resource development in the Colorado Basin that will become a model for the Nation."

Final agreements will be subject to review and further action by the Indian Tribal governments and the Department of the Interior, Udall said.

Mr. Jack K. Horton, President of Southern California Edison, said in Los Angeles that the generating plant, to be known as the Mohave Steam Station, is proposed to be constructed as part of a regional power plan developed by “WEST” (Western Energy Supply and Transmission Associates), an Association of 17 public and private electric generating agencies of the southwest.

Horton said the contemplated plant, which will require an investment of approximately $150,000,000, will have an initial capacity of 1,500,000 kilowatts--enough power to serve a city of 2,000,000 people.

Edison expects to receive about one half of the power plants output; it is contemplated that the remainder will be used by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the Salt River project of Arizona and other southwest utilities.

The Edison President said, “the initial two units of Mohave are expected to go into operation by 1970 and 1971. If additional water supply becomes available in the future, the agreement contemplates the construction of additional generating plants to be built in the Arizona-Nevada area and calls for doubling the use of Indian coal supplied by the Peabody Coal Company as fuel,” he added.

Horton emphasized that the addition of coal-fired plants in the future does not diminish Edison's need for additional natural gas supplies for the numerous generating plants existing or under construction in the Southern California Metropolitan areas.

Edison now is awaiting a decision by the Federal Power Commission on an application to import a new supply of natural gas from Texas for this purpose.

T. C. Mullins, President of the Peabody Coal Company, also issued a statement from his firm’s headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri.

"The opening of this tremendous new market for coal extends Peabody’s area from Florida to California. We are pleased indeed to have this opportunity to contribute to the assurance of low-cost electricity in the western states and to resulting benefits to the Indians and the economy of the west”, Mullins said.

"In view of our Company's huge uncommitted coal reserves in this area, we look forward to continuing and expanded major participation in the growing emphasis on coal-generated power in the west.”

New school facilities in 17 Indian communities of eight States are being opened this fall by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, according to Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

They include 11 new schools and three additions to existing schools--enough to accommodate nearly 6,000 students, mostly in the elementary grades. Three dormitories, built to house more than 1,300 Indian youths who live too far away for commuting, also were completed in time for the fall season.

New structures include a shop building for Haskell Institute at Lawrence, Kansas. Starting this year, the Institute no longer will offer high school classes, but will devote its entire effort to post-high school vocational training. The new building is equipped with training facilities for 192 vocational students.

Two of the schools were built in Florida for the Miccosukees on the Tamiami Trail and the Seminoles at Big Cypress. They will provide about 120 Indian youngsters with elementary instruction that is specially adapted to their needs. The Miccosukee building replaces a one-room, portable structure loaned to the tribe two years ago by Dade County. Located 40 miles west of Miami on U. S. 41, it is part of a complex of new buildings erected by BIA for the Miccosukee Tribe.

It was only four years ago that the Miccosukees made the big leap from their seclusion in the Everglade swamps to a Twentieth-Century mode of living. Kin to the Seminoles and Creeks but always aloof from both tribes, they gained recognition as an independent tribe in January 1962, and were granted a strip of land adjoining the Tamiami Trail near Miami.

With the aid of BIA funds, they have built 15 "chickee" dwellings which are similar to their thatch-roofed native huts in design but contain four large rooms plus kitchen and bath. Tribal members own and operate the restaurant and service station, competing for Florida's tourist dollar. They also plan to build a community center as part of the same complex.

The Big Cypress school is located deep within the Seminole Indian Reservation south of Okeechobee. The school will serve Seminoles at the settlement and those living in some 50 camps within a mile radius.

Other facilities are located as follows:

Alaska: New elementary schools at Port Lion, Kasigluk and Elim.

Arizona: New elementary schools at Kaibeto, Many Farms, and Gila Crossing, with additions to elementary schools at Shonto and Teec Nos Pos; and a new dormitory for the high school at Phoenix.

California: New dormitory for high school and special students at Sherman.

Mississippi: New high school at Choctaw.

New Mexico: New elementary school at Chuska and high school at Fort Wingate.

Oklahoma: New dormitory for Chilocco High School.

A $378,000 contract award, announced today by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior, will provide a permanent supply of drinking water from the Oahe Reservoir for a BIA school at

Fort Yates, North Dakota, which serves 465 Sioux Indian children in grades 1 through 12. Fort Yates is a community on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, an area of more than 865,000 acres that sits astride the State line between North and South Dakota. The new water system will also serve the Standing Rock Indian Agency and the Public Health Service Hospital at Fort Yates. The Oahe Reservoir, source of the water supply, was created by construction of Oahe Dam by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The contract, calling for construction of a water treatment plant and intake structure, was awarded to the Brezina Construction Company of Rapid City, South Dakota. Bids received ranged to a high of $458,700.

The work includes earthfill and riprap protection for the intake structure, site work, grading, concrete walks, a gravel ramp, a 750-gallon septic tank and tile field, and approximately 300 lineal feet of 8-inch and 600 lineal feet of 6-inch water pipe. A clarifier tank, re-carbonator, chemical feeders, filters and pumps will be installed.

The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs today announced the appointment of James D. Hale to the post of Superintendent of the Choctaw Agency, at Philadelphia, Mississippi.

He succeeds Lonnie Hardin, who has transferred to the Bureau's Muskogee Area Office in Oklahoma as education director.

The new Superintendent has been Land Operations Officer at the Seminole Agency, Hollywood, Florida since March 1962. Prior to that he was a soil conservationist at the Seminole Agency and at the Muskogee Area Office. He joined BIA in 1952.

Born in Cave Creek, Arkansas in 1924, Hale attended schools in Alabama and Oklahoma. He holds a BS degree in Agronomy from Oklahoma A & M, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served in the Air Force from 1943 to 1946 and saw action in Europe and North Africa. He is married and the father of two sons.

Nearly 400 more Indian college students received scholarships from the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs this year than in 1964, Commissioner Philleo Nash reported today.

BIA awarded college scholarships to 1,718 students--an increase of 30 percent over last year's figure, he said. Grants amounted to $1,225,000, or an average of $700 per student.

"The number of Indian high school graduates seeking higher education is increasing by 12 percent a year," the Commissioner pointed out. "Fortunately, BIA grants represent only one of the scholarship programs open to eligible Indian students."

Nash said 29 schools of higher learning now have scholarships especially for Indian students, including a number of institutions in the East. In addition, many churches and other groups, as well as tribal organizations, offer grants to Indians for education.

Individual BIA scholarships range from $50 to the entire cost of a college education, including living expenses. Extent of the grant in each case is based both on financial need and scholastic ability of the student, Nash said.

BIA's scholarship program began in 1933 with an annual fund of $9,400. Since 1956, the program has been accelerated each year to an annual level of more than $1 million. Last June, 121 BIA scholarship holders received college degrees and the total number of graduates is expected to increase each year.

Although the BIA grant is usually restricted to undergraduate work, some have been granted to Indians going to medical and law schools, Nash explained. A recent graduate of the Harvard Law School was cited as an example.

To be eligible for a BIA scholarship, an individual must have one-fourth or more Indian blood, and membership in a tribal group served by the Bureau. The grants are made primarily to youth residing on Indian reservations or other Indian-owned, tax-exempt lands.

All grants are handled by BIA area offices, located in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Anadarko, Oklahoma; Billings, Montana; Gallup, New Mexico; Juneau, Alaska, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Muskogee, Oklahoma; Phoenix, Arizona, and Portland, Oregon The Washington, D. C., office handles grants only for Indians of North Carolina and Florida.

A Navajo Indian medicine man will demonstrate the sacred art of sandpainting for visitors to the Interior Department I s Art Gallery beginning October 12.

Fred Stevens, a Navajo medicine man from the Indian Reservation at Lupton, Arizona will create sand paintings used in Navajo religious-healing ceremonies. He will appear in connection with the Gilbert Maxwell Collection of Navajo Weaving now being displayed at the gallery.

Sandpaintings which depict scenes in the life of the Holy Ones, are usually made on the floor of the Navajo ceremonial house (hogan) by sprinkling dry sands colored with natural pigments. The sandpainting is a religious altar composed of the representations of divinity, which later becomes sacred. When an ill person sits on a sandpainting and is treated by the medicine man and chanted over by members of his tribe, he is believed to become a god possessing miraculous powers.

Mr. Stevens will be accompanied to Washington by his wife who will demonstrate the exacting art of Navajo weaving.

The couple will be at the Department of Interior Art Gallery, 18th and C Streets N.W., Monday, through Friday, from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., beginning Tuesday, October 12. On Saturday, October 16, the Gallery will be opened to allow students and those unable to visit during regular hours an opportunity to see this unusual demonstration. The Stevens will be at the Gallery through October 22, the Navajo Weaving Show will continue through November 5.

American Indians are attacking on all fronts in the war against poverty, with youth programs leading the field, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall said today.

More than 18,000 Indian boys and girls from 71 communities in 21 States have taken part in Neighborhood Youth Corps, which enable them to stay in school by providing work opportunities. Earning $1.25 per hour, corpsmen work as aides in hospitals, libraries, records maintenance, building maintenance and tour guide services for various public agencies. The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs predicts an even larger enrollment during the coming school year.

Indian children from 116 communities were enrolled in Project Head Start during the past summer--the program that smooths the path to school for deprived children from needy families. Nearly 10,000 Indian children gained experiences in organized play and classroom adjustment, one-fifth of them through tribally sponsored programs.

By the end of August, 68 proposals for Community Action Programs had been submitted from Indian communities and 29 had been approved for a total expenditure of $4.1 million. Plans were underway for such projects as nursery schools and day-care centers for children of working parents, pre-employment training for service jobs, and studies of manpower available on reservations.

Requests for more than 600 workers from VISTA (Volunteers in Service in America--the domestic Peace Corps) poured in from 56 Indian communities. Approval has been granted for 280 requests and more than 190 workers already have been assigned to reservations.

Three Job Corps Conservation Centers have opened in Indian areas: Winslow, Arizona near Navajo country; Mexican Springs on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico; and Neah Bay on the Makah Reservation in Washington. Seven additional camps were reported in various stages of construction on the following reservations: Colorado River and San Carlos in Arizona; Mescalero in New Mexico; White Earth in Minnesota; Flathead in Montana; Cheyenne River in South Dakota; and Yakima in Washington.

Nearly 200 unemployed Indian adults had enrolled in Work Experience projects under Title V of the Economic Opportunity Act by summer's end. On the Ft. McDermitt Reservation in Nevada, 16 men and women began training; while 175 men started the program on Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota.

In addition, reports indicate that hundreds of individual Indians have applied for small loans under Title III of the Act, for farm improvements or to develop small businesses as a supplement to farm income.

Both the Department of the Interior and the Office of Economic Opportunity are cooperating with Indian tribes and individuals in their self-help efforts.